1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a color photographic light-sensitive material and, more particularly, to a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material having improved photographic properties by using an oily alkylhydroquinone.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is known that "color fog" (or color stain) is observed with color photographic light-sensitive materials of the type which contain color-forming couplers in silver halide photographic light-sensitive emulsions and which are to be developed using a color developing agent such as a p-phenylenediamine, or with color photographic light-sensitive materials of the type which contain compounds capable of releasing diffusible dyes as a result of the redox reaction which occurs on development of silver halide (diffusible dye releasing redox compounds) and which are to be developed using a black and white developing agent such as 1-phenyl-3-pyrazolidone. It has long been known to use various alkylhydroquinones in order to prevent this phenomenon.
For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,728,659, 3,960,570, etc., describe a process of using hydroquinones mono-substituted with straight chain alkyl groups, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,700,453, West German Patent Application (OLS) No. 2,149,789, Japanese Patent Applications (OPI) Nos. 156,438/75, 106,329/74 (The term "OPI" as used herein refers to a "published unexamined Japanese patent application"), etc., describe the process of using hydroquinones mono-substituted with branched chain alkyl groups. On the other hand, hydroquinones di-substituted with straight chain alkyl groups are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,728,659, 2,732,300 (corresponding to British Patent 752,147) and 3,243,294, British Pat. No. 752,146, Chemical Abstracts, Vol. 58, 6367h, etc., and hydroquinones di-substituted with branched chain alkyl groups are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,700,453, 2,732,300 and 3,243,294, Chemical Abstracts, Vol. 58, 6367h, Japanese Patent Application (OPI) 156,438/75, Japanese Patent Publication No. 21,249/75, etc.
In addition, related descriptions of the use of alkylhydroquinones as color fog-preventing agents are also given in British Pat. Nos. 558,258, 557,750 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 2,360,290), 557,802, 731,301 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 2,701,197), U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,336,327, 2,403,721, 3,582,333, West German Patent Application (OLS) No. 2,505,016 (corresponding to Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 110,337/75), and Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 4,819/77.
However, disadvantages exist with conventionally employed monoalkylhydroquinones and dialkylhydroquinones. Many of these hydroquinones are difficult to synthesize, since the synthesis thereof involves 2 to 4 steps. Processes involving less steps require that the reactions be conducted at high temperature for a long time, and, thus, are synthetically unfavorable. Some hydroquinone derivatives have such a low molecular weight that they migrate through each layer in a multilayer color photographic light-sensitive material to cause deleterious side effects. Examples of the deleterious side effects are that some hydroquinone derivatives having a low molecular weight cause a decrease in the sensitivity of the silver halide emulsions and that they reduce diffusible dyes or diffusible dye precursors in the color diffusion transfer photographic process where the pH is relatively high during the development processing step whereby the color of the dyes changes. Some other hydroquinone derivatives are disadvantageous because crystallization thereof occurs during or after coating, resulting in a deterioration of the quality of the coating, or are disadvantageous because an oxidation reaction occurs during the coating procedures or during processing with colored by-products being formed.
On the other hand, in the field of producing color photographic light-sensitive materials, in order to obtain color photographs with higher quality, it has recently been strongly desired to develop a novel color fog-preventing agent (or a scavenger for the oxidation product of a developing agent) which more effectively prevents color fog without reducing the photographic sensitivity, which itself does not crystallize and form crystals and which causes an improvement of light fastness of the dye images formed.